Iraq and Syria, the true cost of war – Le Monde diplomatique
Heavy price: the battle for Raqqa, Syria, August 2017
Delil Souleiman AFP Getty
In June 2014 the United States launched an aerial bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria to destroy the military forces of ISISs self-proclaimed caliphate and a few months later formed a now 83-member international coalition to pursue this aim. In September 2015 Russia began providing military support to Bashar al-Assads regime, which was on the point of being overwhelmed by a popular opposition movement the Syrian government regarded as terrorist even before it fell under the control of jihadist groups. US and Russian interventions would in time lead to some 75,000 air strikes against Iraq and Syria.
However much the coalitions actions against ISIS (Daesh) and Russias support for Assad differ in intent and context, both have been disastrous for people on the ground; the bombing campaigns alone have killed between 20,000 and 55,000 Syrian and Iraqi civilians. How can such a figure, which remains an unofficial estimate, be reliably established and how does it break down? In a multi-dimensional conflict involving foreign forces, counting civilian casualties is especially hard, as it relies on declarations by military actors and on information gathering by NGOs, whose work depends on consent.
The US-led alliance reports on its air operations each month, but civilian casualties are sometimes accounted for only long after the event. For example, in July 2021 the coalition said it had conducted 34,984 strikes the preferred term in Iraq and Syria since August 2014. Its public affairs office reported, During this period, based on information available, CJTF-OIR [Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve] assesses at least 1,417 civilians have been unintentionally killed by Coalition actions since the beginning of Operation Inherent Resolve.
The same justification always features in these documents: We follow a rigid targeting process for all of our strikes to ensure strict adherence to the Law of Armed Conflict while(...)
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(1)Sources: US-led coalition, Airwars, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR).
(9)See Antonin Amado and Marc de Miramon, Syrias propaganda war, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, September 2012.
(11)Le Monde, 8 January 2018.
(12)Le Figaro, Paris, 27 December 2015.
(13)Syria: Deplorable violence in Idlib against civilians, humanitarian workers must stop immediately: UN Coordinator, UN News, United Nations, New York, 21 June 2019.
(14)The White Helmets: Terrorist accomplices and a source of disinformation, The Foundation for the Study of Democracy, Moscow.
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Iraq and Syria, the true cost of war - Le Monde diplomatique